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Live your life
OVR: 49
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Vermont
Posts: 23,153
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Animations & Ratings, how they go hand in hand
There seems to be a disconnect when it comes to developers and people in general every time ratings and animations comes up. Too many people view them as two separate things. When in reality they go hand in hand. If one is bad, it will make the other bad as well.
In NCAA and Madden world, route running rating don't mean a damn thing. It is because of that, SPEED is the only thing that matters when it comes to wide receivers. You could never properly recreate a Jerry Rice type of wide receiver because route running means nothing. Until they properly program route running to mean something and properly program corner backs to react & behave realistically to wide receiver movements, we will be stuck with what we have always had which is the following:
WR/DB interaction is nothing more then a foot race to a spot on the field. That is all it it is. Because of this, speed is the only thing that matters.
Same thing with Emmit Smith. He wasn't a fast running back at all. However because agility, juke, elusiveness, etc means nothing in NCAA and Madden world, speed once again is the only thing that matters.
I could go on and on with every position of a great player who wasn't fast. How ever until NCAA and Madden program the game to give a better separation of animations between number ranges, speed will always be king and the only thing that matters.
There is no difference between a 95 spin rated player and a 40 rated spin player.
No difference between a 95 route runner player and a 40 rated route runner player.
No difference between a 95 finesse move player and a 40 finesse move player.
There should be though. However NCAA and Madden isn't programmed like that. And that is the main problem with their football games. Hell even acceleration don't make a difference. Lack of animations is hurting football games. There should be a variety of groups of animations for each range of numbers within a rating. NCAA and Madden don't have a FAIL animation group at all.
Player Models & Joints
Look at NBA 2K13's animations and look at Madden's and NCAA's animations. Light years apart. NBA 2k13 player models have more joints in their skeletal structure. Now I am not going to get too deep into the whole creating a player model design thing, but let me just say the more joints you have per a model, the more flexible and life like that model's body is.
Good visual for everybody can understand what I am saying. Look at your fingers. Your fingers are made up of 3 joints, your thumb however is made up of only 2 joints. Which is why you can't bend your thumb as much as you can as your fingers. Make a fist, notice how far inward your fingers can bend inside of the palm of your hand. Now make a fist without bending the top joint of your fingers. Doesn't look the same now does it without using that 3rd joint.
This is the problem with the player models of Madden and NCAA, not enough joints in their skeletal structure. So when they turn, squat, etc, they look like stiff robots. When they change directions, they don't turn their hips, their ankle don't turn either, there is no flexing of the foot.
When I look at Madden and NCAA player model, I can see they only have 2 joints making up the player's leg. One in the hip and one in the knee. So essentially all they can do is squat and bring their knees up when running. This is why the running animations and all movement period looks very stiff and robotic.
Go into practice mode, call a running play for the HB , but make the HB stay still instead of running forward. He will run in a place like an idiot like a Playstation 1 character. Leg up, leg down. Doesn't look right, looks like crap honestly. You see the same thing with offensive linemen when their guy is knocked to the ground. They run in place with their hands out like idiots.
But back to the joints in player models. The lack of joints is why Madden and NCAA player models look so stiff. Their limbs move all in piece, they have no natural bend or flex to them. You ever see a QB trying to change directions in the pocket ? He just slides around in awkward unnatural movements instead of spinning around, rotating his hips or ankle over. Literally they slide backwards sideways.
Juke move animation is nothing more then a skip to the side. Seriously look at the replay video of a juke move. The guy literally skips to the side. No flexing of the foot joints, no flexing of the ankles or flexing of the legs at all. They just skip to the side in one solid motion. You see the same thing when they perform a spin move.
Bottom line, they need to add more joints to their player models. The more joints, the less robotic and stiff the models look. Hips, feet, wrists, ankles need to flex, twist and rotate like a real human body would.
Animation Groups
Some may ask why is animation groups important ? Because it ties into ratings that is why. NCAA and Madden pretty much just have animation group. And that group is, they just do it. This is flawed. Need to be various degrees of doing the same movement. Think of a tier.
Tier A - Elite animations
Tier B - Good animations
Tier C - Average animations
Tier D - Bad animations
Tier E - Fail animations
Because Madden and NCAA only have ONE group of animations, this is the reason why you can take any player and put then at any position and do anything with them. Want a Center at QB ? You can do it and be quite successful at throwing the ball with him too. Defensive tackle as the running back ? You can do that too and pull off all the jukes & spins just as good as a running back could too. Kickers, punters and QBs as offensive linemen ? You can do that too and watch them block like hall of fame linemen.
Don't matter what the ratings are because in the world of NCAA and Madden, there is only one group of animations. NBA 2K had this problem last generation but they fixed it and added more animations groups with way more ratings to better distinguished the various animation groups. Try to dunk the ball with a non dunker in NBA 2K13, they can't do it and won't do it. Why ? Because their animation group that they are in tells them hey you don't have that ability. Try to do a spin move or fancy crossover with a center in NBA 2K13, they will lose the ball every time because their animation group for those skills are bad animations.
Bad animations don't exist in the world of Madden and NCAA. Everybody can do every animation good in the world of Madden and NCAA. Don't matter the position, everybody is treated equally.
Fail Animations
Fail animations need to exist in every sport for realism. Madden and NCAA don't have this. Defenders don't take false steps, they don't stumble or fall from a fake out move. Player mirroring still exist in Madden and NCAA. You see it every where. On running plays when you change directions, the entire defense changes directions as the same time as you, REGARDLESS of how damn far away that defender is from you. On passing plays corner backs cut as soon as the wide receivers cut. There is no slow down, no stumbling going on at all.
In real life if you going in one direction and immediately change directions as a defender, you will be thrown off balance, stumble and more then likely fall on your butt. This does not happen in NCAA or Madden. It does happen in NBA 2K13 however. Defenders stumble and sometimes fall on their butt when you do a sharp cut. Hell their own momentum will carry them out of the play. This inertia isn't in NCAA or Madden. You can go full speed, turn on a dime with no slow down what so ever. Defenders don't get thrown off balance at all.
It is the same reason why a defensive linemen can perform a spin move and the offensive linemen don't react to it at all. It is as though that move never happened. In real life if you do a spin move, the guy who is guarding you will get thrown off balance because it is an unexpected change of directions.
The Ratings Tie In
So now we have our animation groups:
Tier A - Elite animations
Tier B - Good animations
Tier C - Average animations
Tier D - Bad animations
Tier E - Fail animations
We could set up the ranges for ratings:
Tier A - 90 to 100
Tier B - 80 to 89
Tier C - 70 to 79
Tier D - 40 to 69
But what about Tier E ? Fail animations need to happen regardless of ratings at least half of the time. Inertia need to always be in effect regardless of position or where on the field you are. Just the natural order of things. Sure you could make a rating just for the sole purpose of fine tuning, call it the balance rating if you like.
The Ratings That Don't Do Anything
The elephant in the room in the world of Madden and NCAA. They have ratings that have no effect on game play what so ever. These need to be reprogrammed. With my new animation groups, I think these ratings would actually matter. But never the less, the ratings that don't mean jack in the world of Madden and NCAA because of no animation groups.
Route running - does nothing. Been in the series for years now. Because of the lack of animation groups, this is a useless rating, it does NOTHING. Don't make a player run routes better or worse. Don't get them open faster or slower. Does nothing.
Finesse Moves - does nothing. No animation groups, therefore a useless rating.
Power Moves - Same as above.
Elusiveness - Same as above. In reality it should make the player shifty and make them more prone to constantly changing directions and cutting back across the field when they are running.
Ball Carrier Vision - Same as above. No animation groups. Therefore it don't matter what their rating is, everybody runs the same and stick to the predetermined path that the play is designed to run.
Acceleration - does nothing.
Pursuit - too watered down, not a strong enough effect on a defender.
Return - does nothing.
Ratings They Need to Add
Play Action - Not all QBs are the same. Some are better at selling the fake then others.
Throw on the Run - same as above, not all QBs are good at it.
Short, medium and deep accuracy - Not all QBs are good at throwing all 3.
Toughness - Some players heal faster then others. There shouldn't be a blanket all players stay injured at the same length of time.
Balance - Some players are more nimble then others and some have 2 left feet and always tripping over themselves.
Does it teach you real Football
My answer would be a definite HELL NO. NCAA and Madden don't teach you real football, instead it teaches people how to exploit the flaws of the game's programming. There isn't a severe punishment for doing unnatural football things in this game.
For instance, take cover up the ball feature. Let us be honest here, how many of us actually use this feature ? I mean really.....I for one don't ever use it. Want to know why ? Because as a ball carrier you are never in danger of having the ball stripped out of your hand or it getting knocked out of your hand running up in the middle. When in reality they always teach you to put 2 hands on the ball when you are going up the middle. So I would like EA to punish people for not covering up the ball in the right situations.
Throwing on the run.......because there is no throw on the run rating, you can do this with any player with too much success. Hell I even can do with a damn CENTER at QB and have too much success with it.
That brings me to another thing. You can plug anybody at any position and have way too much success with it. Everybody having equal animations is killing the football games series realism. There is no difference between a good player and a bad player either. So essentially you can play the same way with every team in the game and have great success, regardless of personnel.
In real life you couldn't turn Army or Navy into an air raid team with their current personnel, it wouldn't work. But in NCAA 13 you sure as hell could because everybody can do everything equally in this game.
Does it pass the visual test ?
Not talking visual far as graphics, but visual as in player movement and doing things you would actually see in real life. My answer would be HELL NO. Player models and animations are way too stiff. I don't ever have that aweee or hell naw did you just see that play or see that move type of moment when it comes to NCAA or Madden. No jaw dropping moment at all.
Animations can make or break the realism of a video game. When your animations and player models aren't good the user is always reminded that he is playing a video game because the people are moving like stiff robots.
Dare I say NCAA and Madden is way too scripted and predictable ? Why yes I dare because sadly it is. When you play against the CPU you always know what you are going to get. Nothing they do ever catches you off guard. You know when you punt the ball or kick off to them, they will always run directly in a straight line right into you.
You know they are never a threat to block any of your punts or FGs. You know they are never a threat to return a special teams play back for a TD. You know you don't ever have worry about their best WR because 9 times out 10 he will barely be thrown to because the CPU don't utilize their best players at all in their offense.
You can run the same plays all game long, CPU never adapts. You can burn a defensive back all game long, the CPU never adapts and put a better defender on your WR.
Way too many plays are guaranteed high success plays. You know if you zig zag run you can cause the defender to run himself into a block or into another defender. You know if you USER Catch, you pretty much have 99% success rate of catching the ball because the defender plays a spot on the field and not the actual ball or WR.
Little things like this adds up and just sours one's enjoyment. Got to the point now you have a lot of people play online only because they know how exploitable and scripted the CPU is. And for those who do play offline, you have to make up all sorts of house rules just to give the CPU a fighting chance. If you have to make house rules when you play against the CPU, then that means the game is severely flawed.
Physics will be our savior & rescue us right ?
Wrong. Physics is still animations based. Same thing as motion capture AKA "MOCAP", it is still animation based. You still have to have animation groups & still have to have the proper number of joints in your player model.
Let us look at 2 games in their 1st year of physics shall we:
Madden 13 and NBA 2K13
Big difference between the two, even though this both them 1st year of having physics. Because NBA 2K13's player models have more joints and they have actual animation groups, their physics look better and more natural. Madden 13's however look unnatural and at times too rag doll because their player models don't have enough joints & over all weight and inertia isn't respected in Madden 13.
You hit stick somebody in Madden 13, they go flying backwards like they got shot out of a cannon. Looks cartoony. In Madden 13 you run into a crowd, you have a high chance of tripping of somebody's feet. Then there are times where physics aren't in effect in Madden 13 at all. Particularly OL/DL interaction and WR/DB interaction.
However in NBA 2K13 you drive into a crowd, you dunk over somebody, inertia will cause you to stumble backwards or forward when you land. Keyword being STUMBLE, sometimes you might fall on your butt, sometimes you won't and will just stumble. Either way it looks way more natural. Weight and inertia is respected. You don't get that player flying for several feet type of impact you get when 2 players collide in Madden 13.
Conclusion
EA needs animation groups. Get rid of the one animation group only mentality of everybody can do everything equally good. Add more joints to your player models. Respect inertia. Lose the predictability of the CPU.
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01-14-2013, 06:31 PM
